The present disclosure relates to the presentation of content by computer systems and other devices, and particularly to the presentation of content that has been highlighted by a plurality of users.
Users may employ computer systems to obtain and exchange information with other users in either real-time or through storage and retrieval from computer memories. Information may be embodied in many forms, including, but not limited to, Web pages, documents, files, etc., that are generated dynamically or stored on local or remote computing systems. Computer networks are well known for providing communication between different users.
Where a computer network is involved, a computer system can access content using a network address that identifies the desired content in the computer network. Content is often identified and accessed in reference to a Uniform Resource Identifier (“URI”), an example of which is a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”). Upon entering a URL into a Web browser, the Web browser may contact a computing system indicated by the URL and obtain the identified content. Computer networks in this regard range from local area networks to wide area networks to global networks including the Internet. The Internet, in particular, enables a large number of users to access a large amount of content on different computing systems.
Users presented with content via a network or otherwise may desire to mark the content to indicate portions that the users consider to be more important, more relevant, more interesting, etc. Some software applications, such as word processing software,  allow a user to select text and associate a colored “highlight” with the text. Other software applications, such as Web browsers (either natively or through a toolbar add-on) allow a user to select text in Web page and associate a colored highlight with the text. In such cases, the user may store and retrieve the highlight information at a later time when the content is again accessed. In such instances, however, the user is limited to viewing the content with only the user's own highlight information.
A need exists for technology in which a plurality of users can be presented with content that is highlighted not only according to highlight information generated by the user, but also according to highlight information generated by other users. An ability to aggregate highlight information received from a plurality of users and present the content to the users with highlights having varying levels of prominence according to the aggregated highlight information will have significant benefits, particularly if minimal or no effort on the part of the users is required (other than to input the user's own highlights). Embodiments of the present invention address these needs and other shortcomings that exist in the current state of the art.